The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Violence and Ice Cream -- No. 156 Spring Street

Spring Street, formerly a dirt road that led from the East
Side to the Richmond Hill estate and Greenwich Village, saw rapid development in
the second decade.George Wragg had
inherited a sizable property, including most of the southern side of the block
of Spring Street between Wooster Street and Laurens Street (later renamed West
Broadway).In 1818 he started improving
his plots with Federal-style homes.

Among them was No. 156, completed in 1819.Three stories tall, a single dormer punctured its
peaked roof.Flemish-bond red brick
was trimmed with simple brownstone sills and lintels.The sparse decoration was reserved for the
entrance, two steps above the sidewalk.Here fluted Ionic columns stood before the wooden door enframement,
carved to imitate stone blocks.Above
the doorway a transom with egg-and-dart framing allowed sunlight into the
hallway.

Quite possibly the house was constructed with a shop on the
street level; but certainly by the end of the Civil War one was there.In 1869 Frederick Schuster operated his business
here and he, like many other businessmen, was upset over the recent
Presidential elections.

Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant was popular in the North
and had defeated the Democrat Horatio Seymour with 52.7 percent of the popular
vote.But Schuster and his peers were
outraged at perceived irregularities within Manhattan’s voting procedures.

In the spring of 1869 the New York Assembly was busy
discussing issues as far-reaching as the Erie Canal extension, the construction
of a new Capitol building, and building a sewer system for the rapidly growing population
of Manhattan.But on April 14 it
listened to the reading of a petition signed by Frederick Schuster and 2,000
other New York City businessmen that asked for a committee to investigate
corruption.

Voting fraud, it claimed “with the direct sanction, approval
or aid of many prominent officials
and citizens of New York, and with the shrewdly-concealed connivance of others,”
had “robbed the people of that great State of their rightful choice of electors
of President and Vice-President, of a Governor and other officers.”A thorough investigation, the signers
claimed, would prove that many had voted more than once, for instance.

Within a few years the store became home to John Hersche’s
shoe shop.Here, around 2:00 on the
morning of August 30, 1873, a small fire broke out.Luckily it was quickly discovered, doing only
about $100 in damages before being extinguished.The shoe shop would remain in the building
for decades, his son taking over the business later.

No. 156 was owned by wealthy George Lorillard at least by
1881.He owned much property in
Manhattan, although he lived in Rhinebeck, New York.Following his death, the house was sold to
Benjamin B. Johnston on December 1, 1887 for $14,100—approximately $365,000 in
2015.Almost immediately Johnston, who
lived in Brooklyn, commissioned architect L. Sibley to install a new storefront
at a cost of $300.

In 1890 Charles A. George, his wife, and their three
children were living in two upper rooms.The Georges were married in their native France in 1882 before the
extended family, including George’s parents and his in-laws came to New York.

The Evening World noted “They came to this country, and for
a time all was happiness.George
obtained work with his father in a looking-glass factory on Canal street.He earned good wages, and supported his wife
and three children until he began to drink.”

According to newspaper accounts, not only did Charles George
began drinking, so did his wife.And, as
was often the case in Victorian accounts, liquor led to disaster.“Then they speedily grew poorer,” explained
The Evening World, “and were recently obliged to move into two small rooms…One
of the two rooms is a bed-chamber in which two narrow cots are crowded side by
side.Man and wife sleep in one of these
cots and the two little boys in the other.The little girl is cared for by her grand-parents.”

George earned $18 a week, but, according to his wife, he “spends
it all in whiskey.One day he gives me
15 cents, next day 25 cents, never more than that, because he says I would
drink it up.Well, perhaps I would, but
last Saturday my baby there was so sick that I got the doctor—Dr. Lorenzo.”

On Saturday, April 19, 1890 the doctor quickly diagnosed the boy’s
problem—he was starving to death.He
prescribed medicine, telling Mrs. George that her three-year old was on the
verge of death.She later told investigators
“So I waited all day, not drinking one glass of beer until my husband comes
home at night.Then I ask him for the
money to buy medicine and food for my baby, but he was drunk and would not give
it.”

The couple’s argument continued throughout the following
day.According to The Evening World on
April 28, “They quarreled all night and drank heavily all of Sunday.” Angered
with his wife’s unrelenting pleas for medicine and food for their son, Charles
beat her; until finally, fearful for her life, she sent their oldest son to get
her mother.

Alice Andre lived one block away, at No. 171 Spring Street
and she was at the George home within minutes.Charles George now turned his wrath upon his intruding
mother-in-law.As she fought back, “her
son-in-law knocked her down and tore her gray hair out in handfuls.It was found in bunches on the floor and in
the hallway the next day,” reported The Evening World.

As she started to her feet, the 53-year old Alice Andre
grasped the small hatchet used for chopping kindling.Three blows on George’s head ended the
fight.He was taken to St. Vincent’s
Hospital with four gashes to the head and a compound fracture of the skull.

An Evening World reporter arrived at the George’s rooms the
following morning.The newspaper
reported “The mother, her face black, blue and scratched, staggered about,
almost stupid from drink, in the outer room and paid no attention to an Evening
World reporter’s entrance nor his movements.”It described the starving boy, saying “Buried in the bedquilts this
morning, one of the boys, about three years old, breathed heavily.His little eyes twinkled restlessly in the
darkness.His tiny fists were clenched
and his limbs were not as big around as a good-sized cane.”

While the reporter was there, a detective arrived, asking
where Alice Andre was.Mrs. George
refused to tell her, “but inquired eagerly for news of her husband.”Detective Savercool was brutally frank.“Your mother is probably a murderess.”

On April 28 The Evening World reported that “Mrs. Alice
Andre, of 171 Spring street, under arrest for assault with a hatchet upon her
son-in-law, Charles George, a mirror-maker, must now answer to a charge of
murder, the wounds upon George’s head having proved fatal.”The New York Times seemed to have little
sympathy for his death. It got his
profession wrong when it reported “Charles A. George, a dissolute French
gun-maker of 156 Spring St…died yesterday at St. Vincent’s Hospital.”

In the meantime Mrs. George was also arrested, charged with
being “an habitual drunkard”—charges which today would amount to child
endangerment and neglect.The children
were given over to the care of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children.

Alice Andre went on trial in May.Charles A. George somewhat atoned for his vicious
behavior with his dying breath and most likely saved Alice Andre from a long
imprisonment.“Her son-in-law’s dying
statement that he deserved what he got was also laid before the Courts,” said
The Evening World on May 9.Alice was
freed after it was successfully argued that she “acted in self-defense and was
trying also to save her daughter and two grandchildren from being murdered by George.”

The following decades would provide far less drama.Working class residents over the years lived
in what were not always the best conditions.In 1909 the building was cited for “defective plumbing” by the
Department of Health.

The ground floor store was used for “shipping and receiving”
in 1946 and at some point a coating of white paint covered the red brick.But throughout the rest of the century the 19th
century storefront, the dormer, and, astonishingly, the Federal-style entrance
survived.

As the Soho district was discovered by artists, the upper
floors of No. 156 were converted to artists’ studios in 1972—one on the second
floor and a duplex in the third and attic floors.Dimitri’s Spring Street Café, operated by
Dimitri Chatzidakis, took over the old store space.When it opened in September 1983 Chatzidakis
offered New Yorkers something they could get nowhere else in the city.

New York Magazine reported on September 12 that “There are
connoisseurs who insist that Ben and Jerry’s Homemade…is the best ice cream in
America.”No store in Manhattan carried
the confection—until now.“Ben Cohen
himself and his ‘famous Vermont cow’ were on hand for the opening of Dimitri’s
Spring Street café, in SoHo, all spanking fresh in pale blue and gray,” said
the magazine.

In 2007 a renovation was started which updated the artists’
studios. It was completed a year later.The
project did not address the exterior, leaving the building with a rather
charming time-worn feel.